The rumors just keep flying around a four-team trade that would bring Carmelo Anthony to New York seems to be slipping away.

Why? Because Denver and Anthony can’t seem to play nice together. So it looks more and more like they will have to play together on the court to start the season in what will be a very awkward union. It looks more and more that way.

One is Anthony, who is hesitant to sign an extension with the Nets, a prerequisite of the deal going through. The Nets won 12 games last year and played before a lot of empty seats in the Meadowlands, and Anthony apparently isn’t sold things will be different. The Nets have a new Russian billionaire owner, a new energy and will be in Brooklyn in a couple years — things are changing with that franchise — but that’s not enough for Anthony.

No, Anthony and his CAA people keep pushing for the Knicks saying he wants to play for a winner. Which is crap — to get Anthony the Knicks would have to strip their roster down to Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire and not much else, with no picks. The Nets are better positioned to be good long term. But you know, it’s the Knicks. So he wants that.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets keep looking around for a better deal, and are considering even killing this deal to find a better one. They may want to ask the Toronto Raptors organization how well that same strategy worked out with the Vince Carter trade. Meanwhile, other teams in the deal are getting uncomfortable.

By the way, some are blaming new Nuggets general manager Masai Ujiri for this. Don’t. There is a division within the Nuggets front office on how to handle this, but at the end of the day Josh Kronke makes the call. The buck falls to him.

We’ve been saying this since day one — Anthony and the Nuggets don’t have to like each other, but they need to be civil and play nice to get something done that works for all of them. Right now, that’s not happening. So a four-team deal is in a holding pattern and may slip away. Both the Nuggets and Anthony may come to regret that. Anthony wants the Knicks but is he willing to risk millions on a new CBA to make it a reality, because that may be the test. For the Nuggets, they may find fewer teams willing to play ball and teams like Chicago more likely to take pieces out of their offer rather than add them in. The Nuggets will feel the pressure to get something done just not to be left with nothing.

Play nice and work out some kind of deal. If you can’t, you’ll all come to regret it.

And in the mean time, Denver and Anthony will both have no fun being on the court together. That is going to be akwaard. Enjoy.

“There is a division within the Nuggets front office on how to handle this, but at the end of the day Josh Kronke makes the call. The buck falls to him.”
I think you are wrong on this. Yes there is a division in the front office, but it is the elder Kronke (Stan) who holds all the power until midnight December 31st.

“No, Anthony and his CAA people keep pushing for the Knicks saying he wants to play for a winner. Which is crap — to get Anthony the Knicks would have to strip their roster down to Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire and not much else, with no picks. The Nets are better positioned to be good long term.”
Really? So Melo would be better of playing for a team, which as this trade is constructed, with no PG, SG or decent PF? It would pretty much be Melo and Lopez, that’s it. That team might win 20 games. At least with NY, he’d have Felton, Chandler, possibly Gallo or Randolph, Amar’e and a few decent bench players. You are seriously overrating the Nets talent minus Devin Harris and Derrick Favors

“No, Anthony and his CAA people keep pushing for the Knicks saying he wants to play for a winner. Which is crap — to get Anthony the Knicks would have to strip their roster down to Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire and not much else, with no picks. The Nets are better positioned to be good long term.”
Are you serious???? The Nets won 12 games last season!!!!! the knicks, although bad last year, won more than double, thats without mentioning their talent upgrade this offseason. Amare and Melo is a much stronger core than Lopez and melo, not to mention in the nets proposed deal they would lose their second best player (harris) so they would be without a pg, a young pf and draft picks, while NY would have top 3 pf in the league, melo felton, chandler, azu, and the russian, plus i seriously doubt the knicks would trade randolph and gallo. so how are the nets in a better position than the knicks after this trade????

Seems to be a lot of hostility towards Melo, for not signing with the nets. I think all u guys should go back to start,to be smart. Melo said to denver, I want to go to the knicks. The top management official should have evaluated their true position in all of this and realized that Melo holds all the CARDS. First position I would have given serious thought to would have been, what if he won’t go where we want him to go, what can we do? The attempt to make the deal with the nets and co. was admirable, but Foolish and time consuming, not to mention the possible outcome,of where we are now. When Melo declined to sign with NJ, Denver should have called the knicks IMMEDIATELY, and tried to GUT the Knicks team of all Wealth available, and pulled the trigger. Knowing he would sign with the Knicks, whatever Denver would have pulled off in the dark of night, behind closed doors, and out of the prying eyes, and ears of Steven A, and the likes,WOULD HAVE STUCK. The Season for Denver could start with talks of rebuilding. There is little time now for chess, for Melo the next move is MATE. Each day that goes by, spares the Knicks another valuable piece of which to attack THEM WITH THIS SEASON.If Denver starts the season with Melo, next season WE WILL HAVE MELO,AMARE,CP3,RANDOLPH,MOZGOV,GALLO,FELTON,and possibly CHANDLER. That’s a NEW YORK team ready to meet the LAKERS for the CHAMPIONSHIP.Denver make the call,718-THE GARDEN, you know which one, THE ONLY ONE,WITH “THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS ARENA”,as part of it’s name.